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Wednesday, April 27, 2016

How to defeat ISIS?

Many months and thousands of
airstrikes after the US Administration proclaimed its intent to “degrade and
ultimately destroy” the “Islamic State” in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), progress
towards the intended aim remains slow. Many ISIS assets -- human and material
-- have been destroyed, but the radical formation has succeeded in acquiring
suitable compensation. In fact, the US-led coalition's attacks have helped it
settle to its advantage a jihadist civil war, opposing it to rival groups in
Syria, and, through the hyped prestige of facing a global alliance, to gain the
allegiance of numerous radical factions, from Afghanistan to Nigeria. ISIS has
engaged in a defiant propaganda and atrocities campaign to maintain a “shock
and awe” effect aimed both at deterring enemies and at attracting recruits.
Over the past months, the ISIS theater of savagery has featured the burning
alive of a Jordanian pilot, the mass slaughter of Egyptian (Christian) workers,
as well as the destruction of antiquities, in addition to its established
repertoire of beheading, stoning, limb amputation, and crucifixion. The need to
put an end to the depravity that is ISIS is yet to be met with a concerted,
deliberate effort capable of securing the result.

Despite some eloquent
pronouncements, the US administration has not proposed a coherent strategy to
defeat ISIS. It is evident that reliance on air power alone, however massive,
will not achieve the goal, while inflicting on the civilian population and the
infrastructure an increasingly heavy price. With solemn commitments to refrain
from dispatching US armed personnel to combat situations, President Barack
Obama has been in search for partners able to provide alternatives in both
Syria and Iraq. He is yet to be met with success.

Washington's repeated claim of its
intent to “arm the moderate opposition” in Syria, to serve as a ground force
against ISIS is absurd, and from the point of view of most Syrians, patently
hypocritical. The United States proposes to train a few thousand fighters (in a
war that consumes that many on a monthly basis), over a period stretching well
over a year, to fight the enemy it has designated, requesting them in the
process to postpone their struggle against the regime that has devastated their
towns for the past four years. Since the start of the Syrian uprisings, the
United States has endorsed successive futile diplomatic initiatives to address
Syria's crisis, despite obvious assessments that these initiatives were
incapable of bridging the differences between the warring parties. The current
claims of “arming the opposition” seem to fall within the same pattern of
irrelevance.

In Iraq, where the spectacular ISIS
gains last June elevated its perceived threat to international levels,
government forces, aided by Shia militias, and supported by Iranian
“advisors,”have succeeded in recapturing some of the lost territory. Their
achievements were, however, through the use of questionable tactics sometimes
mirroring ISIS depravity. The US administration had declared its determination
to re-arm and re-train the Iraqi army, which had fared poorly against ISIS'
blitzkrieg, to serve as the core of a ground force, with further support from
the Kurdish Peshmerga and Sunni tribal fighter. But Baghdad's current
maneuvers, with open Iranian involvement, depart clearly from the publicised
script. Speculations abound as a result on whether Washington has thus been
out-staged, or whether it had implicitly condoned or even approved the Iranian
role as part of secret deal.

Irrespective of Washington's stance,
the current push by the Iraqi government to regain territory is not conducive
to an ISIS defeat. With Iranian-supported militias leading the charge against
the Sunni majority regions currently controlled by ISIS, and the alleged
participation of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in combat operations, in addition
to the open involvement of Iranian military “advisors,” the current push is far
from the national liberation exercises that were supposed to restore confidence
among the Iraqi Sunni population in the Shia-dominated central government. It
was indeed the management of Iraqi Sunni grievances by Baghdad that provided
major opportunities for radicalisation and thus enabled the ISIS takeover of
much of the Sunni-majority areas of the country. With loud mobilisation calls
in Shia media for the eradication of Sunni towns, Iraq seem more headed towards
a protracted civil war than to the restoration of the nation's unity. ISIS may
retreat from further territory, but its grip on the Sunni population is likely
to be strengthened, and its ability to muster resources, regionally and
internationally may be enhanced.

Whether attributed to incompetence,
indifference, or even the malevolent pursuit of self-interest, one aspect is by
now certain about the US ISIS policy: it is unlikely to morph on its own into a
lucid productive strategy. Yet the elements for success are all within
Washington's reach.

The primary element may be the
coherent identification of the character of the enemy. Contrary to
ill-informed, politically correct, musings from Washington (including the
administration's own pronouncements), the temptation of radicalism is not
primarily the result of socio-economic frustration. But contrary to the
assertions of “Clash of Civilizations” adepts, it is neither embedded in the
nature of Islam, nor is it an unavoidable war of religions -- although
mismanaging it is surely enhancing its motion in that direction. Washington
ought to recognise Sunni grievances in both Syria and Iraq -- different in
each, and unrelated to ideology and theology -- as a basis for its
conceptualisation of a solution. In both locales, the failure of the
nation-state, which had been confiscated and depleted by dictatorship, has
promoted the emergence of factionalism. ISIS has sought, and partially
succeeded in ideologising and theologising Sunni factionalism. At its essence,
however, it remains a communitarian bond for an alienated population.

A corollary of this recognition is
that the Syrian dictatorship, responsible for the death of hundreds of
thousands, the displacement of half its country's population, and the
destruction of its infrastructure, cannot be “part of the solution.” It is the
perpetrator, generator, and catalyst for radicalism; maintaining it will
guarantee the survival of ISIS.

The second corollary is that, while
Kurdistan has solemnly earned its right to independence, the rest of Iraq has
to be made whole again, geographically as well as politically and in its
national narrative. Sunni Iraqis cannot be expected to submit to a government
that relies on Shia religious edicts for the conduct of politics and openly
behaves as a vassal to Iran.

Washington has loitered for too long
while the Middle East suffers continuous attrition. It remains, however, the
only credible power capable of summoning a global accord on the way out. This
way out, the way to defeat ISIS, is through a Syria without the dictatorship
and an Iraq remade whole and free, not through conceited statements and
concealed questionable deals.